Czech police detain five teens over online radicalisation by so-called Islamic State group

Published on 25/06/2025 - 13:19 GMT+2

Authorities successful the Czech Republic person detained 5 teenagers for allegedly being radicalised online by the alleged Islamic State (IS) militant group.

Two of them were charged with terror-related offences implicit an effort to acceptable occurrence to a synagogue past year, officials said connected Wednesday.

Břetislav Brejcha, the manager of the Czech counterterrorism, extremism and cybercrime department, said astir of the suspects were nether 18 years old.

They were detained betwixt February and June arsenic a effect of an planetary probe that began past year.

On 29 January 2024, 2 of the 5 tried to acceptable a synagogue connected occurrence successful the Czech Republic's 2nd largest metropolis Brno, Brejcha said, without offering further details.

Czech media reports from February 2024 said 2 suspects placed a firebomb successful beforehand of the synagogue but that it did not explode.

The charges against the 2 teenagers see hate-related crimes, promotion and enactment of coercion and an attempted panic attack.

They and the different detainees were each progressive successful online groups recruiting fighters for IS militants successful Syria, Brejcha said.

Czech authorities worked with their counterparts successful Austria, the UK, Slovakia arsenic good arsenic with the European Union’s instrumentality enforcement bureau Europol successful the case, helium added.

Seven raids took spot successful the Czech Republic and Austria, successful which constabulary seized weapons including knives, machetes and axes.

Michal Koudelka, the caput of the Czech counterintelligence bureau BIS, said the 5 suspects shared a fascination with unit and hatred against Jews, LGBTQ+ radical and others.

They were approached online by Islamic State members and became radicalised, Koudelka said.

"We see online radicalisation of the younker a precise unsafe trend," Koudelka said, adding that the suspects had not been successful interaction with the section Muslim community.